Quantum Regression Ǉitterbug
by invisifan
Summary: After "Quantum Bugaloo" - and then some ...
1. At the Tipping Point

At the tipping point

**The backyard — 20 years in the future**

Xavier snapped an optical fibre into place and a final access panel slid shut over it.

"Okay that's one done," he said stepping back from the somewhat surreal version of a bumper car, "and when it moves in five dimensions …"

Fred stepped forward and pressed a large button at the top of the dashboard. The bumper car hummed, shimmered and "… there might be one sitting next to it," he concluded as the car split into two.

Quickly the boys hopped into the waiting vehicles. "I'm sitting on the left," noted Fred as he strapped himself in.

"And I'm sitting on the right" added Xavier from the other car, and activated the display console on the steering control, "we should show those kids how we've mixed it up."

Fred's console also hummed to life as its chronal sensor found the strong trans-temporal wake of a time machine.

"I guess they came from the museum," Xavier concluded grabbing the wheel, "let's go."

Fred pushed another button on the console and grabbed his own wheel. The cars slid together, bumped and with a soft hissing _pop_ and a dull flash both disappeared.

A second later the back door slid up and an annoyed Amanda looked out at the yard. Xavier and Fred stared back vacantly from under the digital tree.

"Ooh — they never do _anything!_" She glared at them for a moment in frustration, then stamped back inside. As the door closed, the tree, Xavier and Fred flickered briefly.

**Danville Museum of Natural History — Elsewhen**

In the gloom under a blanket of perpetual smog, a lab-coated work-crew laboured singlemindedly, knocking down walls and tearing tiles up from the building's dirt strewn floor. Most of them studiously avoided any eye-contact as they pried, chipped and hammered at anything too large to haul to their truck by hand. To one side, leaning on a thick cane by the remains of a wall a young blonde woman, also in the obligatory buttonless lab-coat, surveyed the scene smiling blankly. A moment later the space immediately to her left pulsed with an unusual display of colour and a large ornate chair-like mechanism appeared.

"Great Vespers Luminous! I've done it! I, Professor Onassis, have invented a time machine!" exclaimed the device's excited occupant, then his face fell as he looked around. Catching sight of the nearby blonde he ventured rather hesitantly, "Excuse me, future female of the species, have corn dogs been invented yet …?"

Ignoring the immediate question she stared at him for a moment, then pointed her cane at his chest, "Aren't you a bit Victorian to be inventing a time machine, Joe?"

"Yes," he agreed timidly, "yes I am. How did you … ?"

"I think you've overshot your mark by a dozen years or so" she said, then leaning close and whispering quietly she added, "You probably won't like it here … _now_."

He glanced around the remains of the room nervously. "P'rhaps you're right …" he agreed. All the workers in sight continued their destructive mission while studiously ignoring him and his new acquaintance — who had taken the moment's distraction to seat herself next to him. She crossed her legs, covered in a sheer, dark, skin-tight material, and pouted at him with sad expectation.

"Ma'am!" he managed as a bead of sweat ran down the side of his face, 'I think I need to depart now."

She smiled sweetly at him, but gave no hint of moving as he reached for the control lever.

There was a faint magenta ripple around the machine and it vanished, causing the nearest workman to mutter, "what do I care — one less piece of junk to haul away." But to his annoyance, a moment later it reappeared with a new, more cheerful occupant.

"Ah, thank goodness, it's great to be back … home?"

**The museum — start of summer**

Fred and Xavier wandered past the fossil wing of the Danville museum.

"I don't get it Fred — there should be _something _here, but the signal's gotten all fuzzy and messed up."

"I'm hungry."

"We _did _put lunch into the power converter," Xavier agreed, "but you never know what's in local food."

"Hey, look! A Slushy Dawg stand! Those haven't changed in a century!"

"Well, right now it's only been about eighty years, but I guess that'll do."

Together they trotted up to the stand just as the young attendant turned to greet them.

"Hey little fellas, welcome to the Museum Slushy Dawg's Grand Opening! What can I get you — everything's on special today."

"Two, uh two jumbo Slushy corn-dogs, please, uh …" Xavier stammered.

"Yeah, yeah, me too …" Fred agreed in shock.

"Okay. four jumbo corn-dogs coming up — you guys are definitely going to ruin your dinner, but I won't tell your Mom if you won't, right?"

"_We won't tell Mom,_" the boys quickly said in unison.

"Well here you go then," he said, setting the purported food in front of them.

The boys looked at each other nervously, then Fred reluctantly held up a mondex card.

"Aren't you boys a little young to be using credit cards?"

They glanced at each other again, "May-be?"

"Ha, well, it's the end of the day on our Grand Opening, so I'll give you guys a break — least I can do for our future customers, right?"

The boys nodded in synch like a pair of bobble heads.

"Okay I gotta close up now, so you guys run along and enjoy. And I'll see you again later."

Quickly grabbing the massive corn-dogs the boys hurried back to their bumper car.

"We won't tell Mom," said Xavier.

"Not anyone."

"We'll never speak of this again."

"I like that idea," Fred said. A few minutes later he added, "I'm full. Why did we get _**four**_ jumbo corn-dogs?"

"Never. Speak. Of. It. Again." The boys looked at each other and put their spare dogs into side pockets of the car, then turned to the tracking display over the wheel. A 3D video image sprang up.

"Oh, there they are. And there's Mom with them," Xavier said.

"There's Mom standing next to her," added Fred.

"Hey what are you kids doing here?" yelled an old man in a janitor's uniform.

"Nothing," both replied at once.

"This section's closed for the n…" Before he could finish there was a soft _pop_ and the car flickered, bounced and disappeared in two directions simultaneously. "Right — I'm outta here — let the new guy go nuts."

**The backyard redux**

"Phineas we're from the future." Candace explained, "two alternative futures — one that's good …"

"And one that's terrible," continued her doppelgänger in a lab coat.

"Someone should really fix that," Phineas said.

"We did," the Candaces replied together.

Phineas looked perplexed, "So the bad future no longer exists."

"Right."

"Well if it doesn't exist shouldn't the Candace from the bad future cease to exist too?" he asked.

"Oh darn…" The lab-coated Candace slumped forward and disappeared with a hissing _pop_ and dull flash.

**Swirling lack of reality**

«_Wow, there's a lot more to not existing than I was expecting_…» Candace thought as she stared into the swirling maelstrom of random vibrant hues. «_And it's solider than it looks too_.»

Her hand ran over the hard smooth surface she was seated on. «_I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this_…»

She turned and looked into the horn of a small satellite dish pointed at her face. Then she looked down.

"_**Fred!**_ What are you _doing_ here?" She knew it was the wrong question even as it left her lips — she already knew the answer.

"Nothing."

Candace sighed and took a deep breath — for a moment she wondered what exactly she was breathing, but with the whole ceasing-to-exist issue still fresh in her mind she decided she had better things to worry about — the world didn't seem nearly as solid as it had a few seconds earlier. She grasped the top of the dashboard tightly.

"Where's Xavier?"

At that moment a number of things seemed to happen at once. She felt a button release under her fingers, Fred responded, "Sitting next to me," — and suddenly he was — and the bumper car lived up to it's name, bucking and spinning wildly. Candace' grip on the car, and possibly reality, was shaken free, and she had a vague impression of it whirling away in some undefinable direction. «_At least the boys have their seat-belts on,_» she thought.

After falling — or maybe it was floating — for a long time it occurred to her that given where she was, and where she'd been, that she might actually be falling through time itself, so a "long time" might not make as much sense as it seemed to. That idea made the swirling around her worse, so she decided that if reality still existed she might be asleep — or if not she could use some — with luck she might wake up yesterday morning and just stay in bed. She closed her eyes hopefully and waited, «_Of course, luck has never been very coöperative before._»

Reality seemed to quiver with anticipation, then shook faintly. It seemed quite bumpy for a lack of anything, but she kept her eyes tightly shut — she was starting to feel a bit nauseous, and the visuals wouldn't help.

"Love the lab coat, Kevin."

She didn't bother to open her eyes.

"You know, if you're not going to say anything useful you could just let me cease to exist in peace."

She tried to relax, and not see what she knew was there, but then again at least it would be a familiar face. Or maybe proof it was all a dream? A sharp tug on the lab coat caught her attention.

"Yes, yes, love the lab coat, I got it," she started to rant and opened her eyes.

The street was drab and poorly lit — late evening and overcast. The houses were dull, dark and boxlike. Her jaw dropped and she looked down. A small chihuahua in a fedora was chewing on the bottom of her coat, shaking it violently. With a yelp she jumped to the left and it let go dropping gracefully to the sidewalk. For a moment their eyes met, then the tiny dog gave a surprised yip and took off down the street with amazing speed. Candace stared after it astounded, her mouth still hanging open. From somewhere she thought she heard a faint whisper, "_oh it gets much stranger._"

* * *

**A/N**

Disclaimer: I don't own any of this. And note that the "Backyard Redux" scene is just a verbatim reminder of a critical event.

I started this story under a different name, but apparently you can't change the story's name once you start, and things went so quickly in a totally different that I've deleted it and restarted — if you're one of the 2 or 3 people who read that start, you won't find a lot different here although I did take the chance to make a few minor edits and add to the first chapter.

This story is about _situations and events_ following "Quantum Bugaloo" — there's really no specific _character _that it's all about, although the focus _is_ on characters at the centre of things at any given time. Candace (from the future) is a major one of those, but initially at least her sons will get more time (apparently). And be warned: this is a story involving 5 dimensional travel, so any scene change can involve changing more than just the _spatial_ location — and the characters will often be just as confused as you.

It helps if you're familiar with the stories in general of course, and obviously Quantum Bugaloo in particular _is _the starting point, but there _will_ be specific references to numerous others as well — some for minor but important details, others for general information, and a few for major plot points. I'm not really trying to keep track, but a few that immediately spring to mind are It's about Time, Bully Code, Across the Second Dimension, Temple of Sap,Fireside Girls Jamboree, and Doonkleberry Imperative, but there's lots of others. I have no interest in beating you over the head with any references, or even pointing them out — if you miss them just go with it and you should be fine (which is pretty much true of the show in general).

I won't beat you over the head with jokes, puns, relationships or even who people are either, with essentially the same reasoning. I expect to keep as close to 100% consistent with canon as possible. so don't expect many new characters, although I may use quite obscure ones when the context demands, like Leif, who is necessary in a connect the dots sort of way — so I gave him a name and fleshed him out a bit since he only gets a cameo & mention in the actual show.


	2. Practically nowhere

Practically nowhere

**Fireside Girls' rustic Clubhouse**

Ginger Hirano gave her coded knock at the door and stepped inside. Most of the regulars were there already, but she was happy to see she wasn't the last to arrive.

"What's up?" she asked expectantly.

"Deciding what to do," Adyson replied.

"The Chief's not here yet," Gretchen added.

"We can get patches on our own," she said, "and we're _not_ going to see what Phineas and Ferb are up to."

"Oh, I know," Ginger interjected excitedly, "We can see what Baljeet is up to!"

"Oh for the …" Adyson began.

"It's something," said Millie, "I'm bored."

"Oh fine then," Adyson agreed and the troop headed to Baljeet's home. They found him in his backyard working furiously over a large piece of notepaper covered in equations and partial schematics.

The girls watched him for a few moments while he wrote and erased and rewrote esoteric symbols on various sections of the sheet. Finally they all turned and looked at Ginger.

"Uh, what's up?" she asked hopefully. He blinked and looked at the troop with some surprise.

"I am endeavouring to work out the quantum mechanics for a practical time machine — Phineas and Ferb have _apparently_ already used one with out my help so I will use my own with out _them_."

"Oh we can help with that then!" she said noticeably happier.

"You can? But this is highly advanced quantum physics."

"Sure," said Gretchen, "it's right here in the Time Travel section of the Fireside Girls handbook."

"There is a Time Travel section in your handbook?"

"Right here," she said, pulling out her copy and flipping to the section for him.

"And this works?" he asked with a slight facial tick starting to affect his right eye.

"Of course," scoffed Adyson, "that's how we built the time machine to go get Phineas and Ferb back from the Cretaceous."

"You went to the Cretaceous. With Phineas and Ferb. And hung out with dinosaurs."

"Yes."

"Aaaaaaaaaaaa!" he screamed inarticulately, grabbed the worksheet and balled it up, tossed it in the air, and stamped into the house.

Catching the wad of paper, Gretchen flattened it out and compared it to her open handbook, "Too bad, he was only a couple of days away too."

Ginger took it and folded it up neatly. "Maybe he'll want to work on it again later." The girls exchanged dubious glances.

"Well, that was _so_ not worth it," Adyson concluded and led the way back toward the clubhouse.

On the way back, Katie caught up with them, "Did I miss anything?" she asked a despondent Ginger.

"Not really," stated Millie.

"Oh there's Isabella," said Hollie and waved.

"Hi troop, watcha do-in'?"

"Just patch-hunting Chief," said Gretchen, "watcha got for us?"

"I was just going to put this wooly mammoth tusk and viking helmet in our clubhouse," she said holding them out, "and get my handbook — there's some kids who need our help."

"Not Phineas and Ferb?" Adyson enquired skeptically.

"Strangely enough no — and coincidentally it involves time travel."

"Coincidentally that's our theme for today," Millie added, causing Ginger's face to fall even further.

"Okay, Ginger and Katie, take these back to the clubhouse and meet us at the museum," Gretchen ordered passing the tusk and helmet to them, "I've got the handbook, so let's go people — time's a-wasting."

"Oh, for …" Adyson sputtered, "It's _time travel_ — it's not like it's _urgent_." Then she hurried after the troop.

**Nowhere Practical**

"Why did you recombine the car?" Xavier asked, "it's not charged up enough since the last split yet."

"Mom did," said Fred.

Looking around he realized his mother had already spiralled away into the swirling rainbow void. "Wow, I hope she's okay."

Pulling and turning the car's wheel seemed to have no effect, although the random colours pulsed and twisted differently. "I guess it's harder to tell where you're going without anything trying to stop you," Xavier noted, "hard to tell where you _are_ too. I think the temporal stabilizer got shorted out."

"I'm sitting under this satellite dish," Fred observed philosophically.

"I'm sitting next to you," Xavier admitted leaning back. For an indeterminate amount of time they both sat and watched the light show unreality put on as their vehicle followed the path of least resistance.

**Danville Museum of Natural History — 27,000 B.C.E.**

Isabella looked around frantically — the time machine sat solidly on top of a low grassy rise in a foggy plain. Near at hand a menacing glacier loomed over the field. Scattered all around were a variety of huge bones, many half buried in the soggy earth. She held back tears as an overwhelming sense of horror swept over her. «_He __**trusted**__ me and I've let him down — he'll __**never**__ trust me again_.»

She'd already realized that this was the machine she and her troop had built. It had looked like the original, but they'd hurried — no spatial controls, no internal power source. It was fine while the museum was around it, but she'd gone too far back in time, so now it was unplugged, and there was nothing — and from the look of things, nowhere — to plug it in. She checked the clockwork dial — being mechanical it's readout still worked even without power: 29,000 years in the past. That meant it was pretty unlikely that she'd be able to do anything about an outlet any time soon.

She wasn't actually worried about getting back. In a few years or so she could figure out some way of charging it she was sure, although it would have helped a lot if she'd brought her Fireside Girl's Handbook. By then though she'd be older and what would Phineas think then — of course she could just give up or the machine might be destroyed before she could power it. That horrified her even more — then Phineas would have to come and get her! She had no doubt that he would if she wasn't there when he got back to the museum — he'd find a way, it didn't matter how — but he'd never see her as a companion again; she'd have become a liability, nothing could ever be the same and everything she'd ever dreamed of would be crushed. She blinked and stared up into the swirling mist, "No crushing!" She looked around, half afraid Phineas would step into the visible area around the machine, but it was thankfully devoid of life. There was still time to fix things on her own.

She sat glumly for a while longer contemplating her situation. Idly her gaze fell on the menacing wall of ice. «_Nah, too glacial,_» she decided.

There wasn't anything else she could think of that didn't involve access to tools she didn't have, or at least her handbook for possible alternatives, but she was loathe to actually step out of the machine to look around; it seemed too much like breaking the final bond of trust. In any event, she told herself, even nearly 30,000 years in the past this was still Danville, and you never knew what would just fall out of the sky.

A few moments later a two-person bumper car appeared with a soft _pop_ and a dull flash and skipped over the surrounding turf like surf, scattering bones and debris in all directions until coming to rest at the foot of the knoll in front of her. Two kids who looked to be not much younger than she was stared back at her.

"Close enough," she observed, picking up the tusks that their entrance had tossed in her lap. «_Oh, wooly mammoth graveyard,_» she thought, and set them down behind her.

The boys looked at each other then stared up at her in silence.

"Watcha do-in'?"

The boys looked at each other again, their expressions becoming slightly horrified. "Nothing," Fred offered.

"Nothing? Yeah, me too," she agreed. If these kids weren't going say anything then Phineas wouldn't hear about it from her either. "I don't suppose you have a spare outlet on that?" she asked, "My power's gone missing," mentally adding, «_by a few thousand years_.»

"Uh, sure," said Xavier, prodding under the dashboard console, "we've got power, but I think our guidance system's burned out — do you know where, uh, and when we are?"

"Oh, Danville about 27,000 BC. How did you get here then?" she wondered, "I just got here myself."

"Must have fallen down your wake when we lost control I guess."

"Can you get home?" she worried, "I'm Isabella by the way."

"Maybe," Fred said looking a bit worried himself, "uh, I'm Fred?"

"And I'm sitting next to him," Xavier agreed.

"Well, if you can give me a boost I can tow you — in time at least — this thing can haul a dinosaur with enough power, but it's sorta limited about where," she said ignoring the obfuscation.

"Cool."

The boys hopped out and opened a panel at the back of the car. It had it's own re-generator, but they were going to need more power than it could supply quickly, so they gathered some suitable materials to use as fuel. Isabella reeled in the power cord and examined it critically, while they finished up and returned to their seats.

"I think this should work as a tether, but will it plug into your system?" she asked.

"Sure, Fred's got a universal power adaptor."

"I'm sitting on it," Fred said, pulling an odd shaped attachment from under the seat. She tossed the cord to them and Fred attached it to their car. The time machine hummed faintly and Isabella threw the lever forward.

**28,000 years later**

The time machine spun around and, as the tether released, whipped the bumper car across a clearing and off a cliff. Isabella looked after it in horror, but a moment later it reappeared and glided back next to her.

"That was fun," said Xavier, "but I don't think this is the right place?"

"No," she agreed looking at her dials, "it's around 1000 CE — which is better but not right, and the machine shouldn't have moved, but that cliff shouldn't be there either."

Xavier examined the dashboard looking crestfallen, "I think it's us," he admitted, "the car moves in five dimensions, and it's supposed to be bumpy — you know: bumper car — so I guess _it_ towed _you_ a bit too … if it's on and moving it's gonna to be sorta random..."

"But it _needs_ to be on for power," Fred added dejectedly, "we may not be able to get much closer to home."

"It might help if we knew _where_ we are," she said, "all I can tell is when."

"We could ask _him_," Xavier suggested pointing to a young blonde boy wearing furry clothes and a horned helmet who was watching them from a few yards away.

«Jeg føler meg ikke så bra …» observed the kid and fell over.

"Well," said Isabella straightening her dress, "I don't like the sound of that." It looked like this would be the time to put her First Aid Patch to good use and she could still _watch_ the machine from there, so she hopped down and went over to the boy along with Xavier. He was moaning as she did an initial assessment and looked rather pale — almost green.

"He's burning up — but if we can't talk to him …"

"Fred's got a universal translator," Xavier said.

"I was sitting on it," agreed Fred, opening the storage compartment under the car's seat.

"He collects stuff," Xavier added in response to the look Isabella gave him.

The translator turned out to be a skullcap with headphones and a small speaker on top. The problem was that it wouldn't fit over the kid's helmet, and ill or not he seemed willing to fight to the death not to take that off.

"One of us could wear it," Isabella pondered, "but then we'd have to interpret and since _we_ already understand each other it would be a waste of time. He really should wear it."

"What's he so upset about?" wondered Xavier, "It's just a stupid hat with big horns."

"Yeah," agreed Fred, "a big ho… er, maybe he's bald..." he concluded under Isabella's glare.

"It must be some sort of cultural thing," she decided, "A symbol of …"

She looked at the two boys watching her expectantly, "Of how big — _Oh, I know!_"

Going back to the time machine she retrieved the mammoth tusks. "Now if you have any glue or wire?" she asked hopefully.

"Fred's got a wood & steel fusing tool," said Xavier, "that should work for ivory too."

"It's a spare," Fred added handing it over.

Taking the two bigger tusks she welded them to the band connecting the translator's earpieces and held it up. The tusks were large, mismatched and oddly curved, but it formed a crude approximation of a helmet.

"Wow," Fred exclaimed, "that's one hor… _er, _horribly er, well-decorated hat."

Isabella put the now lopsided headgear on and knelt by the semi-conscious youngster, "_Hi, how are you feeling?_"

The translator cancelled her words and provided a tinny sounding interpretation from its speaker. The boy's eyes open and he stared at her in awe.

"Oooh, are you going to take me to Valhalla Miss Valkyrie?"

"Well first you need a better helmet," she smiled, "want to trade?"

His eyes widened, and he swapped with her without hesitation. Now that he was more awake he looked at her more closely.

"_Aren't you a little young to be a Valkyrie?_" he asked, the speaker's words not matching the movement of his lips.

"Yes, yes I am," she replied, "Aren't **you** a little young to be going to Valhalla?"

"_No_," the speaker intoned sullenly, "_No I'm not_."

"Okay, what's your name?" she asked.

"_Shouldn't you already know?_"

"It's procedure," she insisted.

"_Leif._"

"I thought he looked a little green," remarked Fred drawing a withering stare from Isabella.

"And where are you from," she continued.

"_Dånskdømtville_," he replied, "_down there,_" pointing toward the cliff edge and promptly passed out.

Isabella and the boys went to the far edge of the cliff and looked down at a burning village in the distance.

"Well, that's not good."

"Let's check the universal library," suggested Xavier, returning to the bumper car. He pushed a button on the dash and intoned "Dånskdømtville."

"Oh, future," Isabella noted.

= **Dånskdømtville — doomed viking outpost in present-day Drüsselstein — after an outbreak of smallpox at the turn of the millennium it was burned to the ground by an angry mob **=

"Well, that's _not _good." They all stared at the unconscious Leif.

"We've all been exposed," Isabella pointed out, "Smallpox was wiped out ages ago in our time so no one has any immunity. The vaccine will work if we get it soon though, but your machine could land anywhere so we have to fix this before you go anywhere."

"How do you know all that?" asked Xavier.

"Infectious diseases patch," she replied, "Oh, I know! I read that when the Danville Natural History Museum opened they had a week long vaccination clinic there — but how do we get back there?"

"We're okay if it's just space," said Xavier, "then we can see where we're steering. And we're fast."

"What about the shrub?" Fred asked. All three turned and looked at the little viking.

"We can't just leave him here," Isabella decided, "He comes with us and we'll decide what to do when we've got everything else sorted out. But can you haul everything with just your car? Mine only moves on time."

"Oh yeah," Xavier assured her, "It's five dimensional — space, time and possibility — so it might be here, and," he continued, pushing the large button on the dash, "it might be _there_ too." An identical car appeared next to it.

"You just don't want to sit on the same side in case they might be in the same place," said Fred.

With two cars to gather supplies, and the fusing tool for constriction, they quickly built a raft under the time machine's struts and hooked the bumper cars to either side. Isabella sat in the Victorian device with the comatose Leif and the trip went surprisingly quickly and without incident — aside from a moment when the boy stirred momentarily, looked at her, at the clouds below, muttered _Ride of the Valkyries_ and promptly passed out again. As they approached the future Tri-State area, she re-certified her Local Geography Patch by directing the placement of the machine precisely where it would be a thousand years later.

"Okay, we're ready," she said, "When the machine is charged, uncouple it and stand back so you don't get pulled along. I'll stop at the clinic and get the vaccine — then I'll get the tools and stuff to fix your navigation and be back right away — it is a time machine after all." Of course she'd pick up Phineas and Ferb too, but she'd rather they didn't know the extent of the adventure her brief trip to Phineasland had started her on — and although it would have normally annoyed her, she knew she could slip away easily without them noticing once they were back to their own time.

The machine glowed with a violet light and disappeared, The boys had put their catatonic companion against a nearby tree, and now sat next to him to wait.

"Hasn't changed much," Xavier remarked.

"Taller," Fred pointed out, "Should have used self-repairing chips in the navigation."

"Mom's stuff's all old school — and Amanda woulda freaked if we'd touched hers."

"Yeah."

"_Gurgle_," Leif agreed.


	3. Down the platypus hole

Down the platypus hole

**Back in the present**

Ginger and Katie rushed into the clubhouse with Isabella's souvenirs and placed them on the nearest shelf.

"So what're you up to?" said a voice behind them, nearly making them jump as they spun around.

"Oh — Ms. Feyersied, I didn't know you'd be here today," said Katie. The old lady was seated at a desk in the far corner, writing in what appeared to be a large journal, and surrounded by several other books and papers.

"My but you girls are such a hurry. I'm just making some notes for myself — at my age it helps keep you organized," she pointed out, indicating the pile of papers scattered around her. "I'm thinking of some renovations for the future," she continued gesturing at the light fixture, "we have to keep up with the times you know — hmmm, fluorescent or LED do you think?"

The girls looked at each other in mild bemusement. "I'm sure whatever you decide will be great Ms. Feyersied," Katie replied.

"Yes," said Ginger, "and we're supposed to meet the troop at the Museum," she added.

"Ah well, I won't keep you then. Do you have everything you need? Haste makes waste you know."

"Isabella _did_ say she was going to get her handbook," Ginger recalled glancing around, "but I don't see it, and we have ours — we really are in a bit of a rush."

Ms. Feyersied's gaze also swept the room, "In that case I won't keep you — but it _is_ always best to be prepared, so take this spare to her," she said holding out a huge copy from the table, "just in case. You never know what use you'll find for things."

The girls looked at it skeptically. "Sorry, large print edition — my eyes aren't what they used to be — but anyway I've got a bigger print version on order."

"Ok, thanks Ms. Feyersied," Katie said quickly while nudging Ginger, "We have to hurry now."

The girls rush out the door lugging the heavy tome and took off for the museum as fast as they could manage.

At the Gadgets Hall the rest of the troop had already set to work installing a battery backup on the time machine and gathering supplies. As Katie and Ginger entered they were almost ready to go.

"Here, you'll need to drink this." said Adyson handing them cups if smallpox vaccine, "and what is _that_," she added glaring suspiciously at the oversized book.

"Spare handbook for Isabella," Ginger admitted sheepishly.

"Ms. Feyersied insisted," Katie added defensively, "it's the large print edition."

"Well we can't leave it lying around," Adyson sighed, "Toss it in the machine — we're about ready to go."

A few seconds later everyone was aboard and the machine faded away just as the janitor entered the hall.

"So it's going to be one of _those_ days," he shrugged, and began mopping the now empty space.

Back to the past

With a faint magenta flash the machine brought Isabella and her troop to the spot she'd left Xavier and Fred only a few moments earlier (from their perspective). The girls quickly disembarked and gathered around the three boys.

"You should drink these," Isabella said handing over cups of the vaccine, "Girls, see if you can get some into him," she added indicating the comatose little viking, "and some antibiotics too."

"Okay chief," Gretchen responded wrinkling her nose, "looks like he could use some soap and bug spray too."

While she and Millie took care of that business the rest of the troop unloaded the time machine and gathered around the boys' car.

"There's a chronal sensor that should be pretty accurate," Isabella explained, "It's the same as ours and it's tough so you shouldn't have any trouble with that, but all I could get at short notice for space was a GPS system, so it won't really work until after about 1979 when the first satellites went up."

While she was speaking the troop swarmed over the car. Ginger climbed into the front seat and flipped her handbook open, examining the underside of the dash. Adyson and Hollie opened the hood and brought out their own handbooks while examining the wiring. They quickly started attaching the GPS and chronal sensor into the system and completed the task in under five minutes.

"All ready," said Adyson, "but you're getting a lot of resistance in the temporal forward direction. I don't think you can go more than about fifty years without recharging."

"How do you know all that?" Fred asked as he looked over the new wiring.

"It's in the handbook," Ginger pointed out, flipping to the time-travel section, "and micro-wiring back here," she added leafing through a few more pages.

"Yeah," agreed Xavier, "it's all been done."

Fred shrugged resignedly not noticing as Baljeet's tightly folded notes slipped from the book as she closed it, and lodged loosely in the car's ground effect skirt.

Isabella and Adyson were consulting the handbook together and rechecking the calculations. After a few moments they came back to the car. "We need to get you home through that resistance," Isabella said, "We could try towing you with your power off."

"I don't think it will work," Xavier worried, "if we're moving in _any_ dimension the engine will turn on — it's a failsafe thing."

The girls pondered that a bit longer. "We could rig your end to release the tether when it gets power, and you'd be in our wake so it would lower the resistance like when we met," Isabella suggested, "but there's no way to know when you'd get to — or where, since you move in space too. We couldn't find you again."

"It's good enough," said Fred, "we could go from here if we had to — it'd just be real slow."

"Then I guess we're as ready as we're gonna be," Xavier admitted. As they finished up Millie and Gretchen came over with the damper and now slightly more lucid viking boy in tow.

"_What a strange new world this Valhalla is,_" stated his helmet, "_To earn my place I must conquer it as my forebears did the lands of ice and green … or was it green and ice … ?_"

Even taking his rather top-heaviness into account he wasn't particularly steady on his feet yet.

"Good luck with that," Fred commented.

"Don't sell biological warfare short," Millie pointed out grimacing.

"What _do_ we do with the little greenhorn?" Xavier wondered.

"_My horns are __**not**__ green_," responded the helmet, "_are they?_" At which point he attempted to look up and promptly fell flat on his back, "_No, we're good_."

"Well, we can't leave him here," Isabella stated flatly, "he has to go with you."

"Wait — with **us**_**?!**_" Fred yelped, "Why can't **you** take him?"

"Because we can't travel in space, and do you really want him showing up in Danville — ever? Aside from which he didn't, so we really can't."

"Awwww …" the boys agreed together.

She turned to their car and examined it critically. It would be a tight fit for three.

"We _do_ move in space," Xavier observed, "and it's a bumper car, so we have to be belted in."

"There's a middle belt, but the shrub's so short it'd strangle him — especially being so top-heavy," Fred added brightly, "And no way he's going in a driver's seat."

"Hmm … oh! I know!" she said, and retrieved the large print handbook from the time machine. It fit neatly in the middle of the car's bench making a crude booster seat. "A thousand and one uses," she noted happily ignoring Fred's sour look.

**Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind**

Candace put her hands on her hips, looking up and down the street but saw no one. There was a muggy humidity to the air that made the sense of oppression bear down on her and the faint hint of a breeze only served to send a chill down her spine. There was a sense of foreboding that clung to everything like a layer of old dust.

«_Did I do this?_» she wondered. «_Did the future not get fixed after all? Or was it the boys? What happened to them — were they even really there? Or am I in some non-existence purgatory for messing with the rightful order of things?_» Madness seemed ready to overwhelm her. «_No, I'm stronger than that,_» she decided, forcing it down,_ «I've got to keep control._»

For lack of any meaningful alternatives she began to wander down the street in the direction the chihuahua had gone. The drab houses were all surrounded with wrought-iron fences, like huge prison cells, and guarded by malevolent lawn gnomes at every gate. She was beginning to feel a certain sense of familiarity now, but it was hardly reassuring — rather it seemed as though she was walking through an oddly twisted, monstrous parody of her childhood blended with the bad future she had seen.

At the street corner there was what appeared to be a tall lamp-post, but without a light. In fact, she realized there were no lights on anywhere despite the gathering dusk although similar posts appeared at regular intervals for as far as she could see. Next to the pole was a battered street sign reading "D107 D1507639" in ugly black letters that were largely scratched out and a small Maple leaf painted over part of it. Could that mean Maple Street? Her parents' suburban home — where she'd just been with Phineas and Ferb? Or perhaps she was hallucinating? Or was her own recent brush with an alternate future making her paranoid?

As if to emphasize that feeling, she noticed a faint rustling noise coming from above. Curiosity overcoming her burned-out sense of dread, she peered up into the deepening gloom towards the top of the pole. At first she couldn't see anything against the overcast sky, but then …

"Hey, you up there! What are you doing?" Whoever it was didn't seem too large — although she realized on second thought that that might not be the best indicator. Still, she was a grown woman who'd survived ceasing to exist at least once today already, so she decided to put on a brave front — how much worse could it be?

As she stared up her eyes were becoming accustomed to the fading light, and she began to make out some details — like the small moving box at the top of the pole. A camera she guessed — in her world such things had been a ubiquitous but benign presence for most of her life. Even when she was a teenager there had been traffic cameras on Maple Street — if that was really where she was now — she'd even climbed up and tampered with one herself once looking for evidence to bust her brothers. And she saw that whoever was up there seemed to be a kid — shorter than she'd been back then she noted thankfully — some things were awkward enough the first time around. The small figure was trying to keep the pole between them, but having a hard time even without her moving for a better view — definitely not an athlete.

"Look, you'd better come down before you fall and hurt yourself," she insisted as her maternal instincts started to assert themselves.

"No way! You'll experiment on me," he replied.

"What? Why would you think that?"

"Because you're _evil_."

"I am _not_," she choked out, «_aside from messing with the past and maybe causing this..._» her subconscious added.

"Sure you are — you're wearing an evil scientist lab coat," he pointed out.

Candace looked down, "This old thing? No, it's … it's a …" her mind raced irrationally back to where she'd gotten it, "It's a little old librarian's lab coat."

That didn't make a lot of sense, even to her now that she'd said it, but surprisingly the kid shimmied down the pole a little and peered more closely at her.

"You're not very little," he opined, looking at her askance, "and you don't look like a librarian," he added, then paused expectantly.

"Just get down here," she snarled.

"Yes sir."

He seemed about Phineas or Ferb's age as she'd last seen them, and definitely out of shape. The dark overalls, front covered with crudely sewn pockets, thick glasses and bad haircut gave a punk-nerd impression that just wasn't working. Still he looked familiar — in a completely forgettable sort of way.

She was struck with a sudden sense of foreboding. "What's my name?"

He blinked in surprise. "I have no idea — and we don't talk to strangers," he added, abruptly bolting down the street.

«_Well at least it I'm not __**Joe**__,_» she told herself as she stared after him. He wouldn't have been too difficult to catch, but it seemed pointless, and undignified — and she'd had enough of that already today. She looked up the pole at the spy cameras and it came to her — the thoroughly unremarkable kid that was always spying on her brothers. His name still escaped her but it didn't matter — it meant she was still in the past. Something was still terribly wrong, and not just with the future anymore.

**Late 19th Century**

With a soft _pop_ and flicker of light the bumper car appeared above a sparsely appointed Victorian dinner table. For a moment the three boys looked down at the rather surprised family staring back up at them, then their vehicle hummed fitfully and the lights dimmed.

"Uh-oh," Fred concluded, and the car dropped down crushing the surprisingly flimsy table to the floor. Leif immediately yanked his restraint loose and half-fell, half-vaulted onto the floor, grabbing a piece of cutlery as it clattered away.

"_With this mystic sword I, Leif of Green, shall conquer this new land_," his helmet intoned as he struck a heroic pose, tossing back his head, to the amazement of the stunned onlookers. This caused the heavy ivory "horns" to overbalanced him landing him flat on his back.

"I say," began the man who had been standing in front of the table, "'tis a butter knife in fact. There be a carving knife if 'twould be more helpful?"

"Uh, you shouldn't encourage him," Xavier suggested, "I'm Xavier by the way, and this is Fred."

"I be Socrates," the man responded a bit mechanically.

A moment of awkward silence ensued during which the brothers got out of the car. Fred de-knifed the supine Leif and leaned the wobbly kid against the wall while Xavier examined the remains of the table that stuck out from under the vehicle. "Er, sorry about that," he said rather sheepishly, "Was that your dinner?"

"Aye, aye, 'twas indeed," the man replied forlornly.

"Doesn't look like much," Fred commented.

"Och, we be a poor but frugal lot."

"So hungry," added his son in a low moan. "Hush Josephus," his mother comforted.

After a moment's consideration Fred took his spare jumbo corn-dog out of the car's storage area and handed it to Xavier, "They can have this."

The family gathered around the proffered offering in amazement. "Wha' fabulous confection be this?"

"It's just a corn-dog — no big deal back home," Xavier said breaking it into three large sections. While they were occupied Fred began stuffing bits of wreckage and debris from the table into the car's power converter. Leif kept himself busy not falling over.

"Where in the world could ye be from tha' such food o' the gods be mere commonplace?"

"We're from Danville," Fred said offhandedly.

Xavier took in their blank stares and went to the convenient globe by the door, "It's over here," he pointed out.

"And here there be corn-dogs?"

"Well," Xavier admitted, "There _will_ be, but they haven't been invented yet — we're from the future."

"And you said cousin Herbie was living in a dream world," said the wife giving Socrates a kick.

"Ow! Ah dinna say any such thing," he complained, "Ah said he be havin' a rich fantasy life."

In the interim Leif had managed to more or less successfully cross from the wall to the car and was removing items from the storage area and prodding the dashboard randomly. Momentarily the car shook, hummed, and with a miniature light display lifted about eight inched off the floor.

"Hey!" Fred and Xavier yelled in unison and scrambled to get on board. Together they manhandling the uncöoperative youngster onto the book that formed the seat between them. In the process the hovering vehicle rocked and swayed from side to side.

"_I don't feel so good_," the little viking's helmet remarked, as he gave even more meaning to his extended name, "_I'm going to go home now_."

Xavier and Fred both grabbed him as he slumped forward unconscious, but his over-sized helmet 'horn' continued forward and down, striking the large and apparently too accessible button on the dash.

"Aww, that's not good," muttered Fred.

Xavier looked at the blank-faced family watching, each holding a huge chunk of jumbo slushy dawg. "Enjoy the 'dog and sorry about the mess," he managed as the car flickered and split, bouncing away in two directions at once and disappearing.

"Ah _like_ that kid," Socrates said rapturously, taking another bite of the corn-dog, "Ah'm gonna name mah first-born after _him_!"

"Ahem," his wife commented, pointing at the small boy standing between them, stuffing a section of corn-dog into his own mouth.

Socrates blinked. "Ah'm gonna _re_name mah first-born after him!" he corrected, "And we're movin' to Danville!"

While his parents argued politely, the newly rechristened Xavier examined the ruins of the table and picked out a folded sheet of paper covered with esoteric symbols. Puzzled, he put it in his pocket for later.


End file.
